Onto Binding

Can you believe it?  Those two words bring me joy:  onto binding.

I ran into all sorts of issues with the ruler foot.  I'd really like to find a good jumping ruler foot, like the one I use for freemotion quilting.  Some stars rays are a little jerky and if you look closely, it's where I hit a seam.  Darn.  Any time there was a change in thickness, it would want to pull or jerk.

Also ran into issues with some of the long rays - my ruler would suddenly catch and I'd stop dead in my tracks.  I was more than half done with the border when I discovered it was hitting the hinges of my sewing machine cabinet.  Once I understood that, I moved things around so the ruler didn't stick too far to the left of the machine.

I ended up sewing the remaining border stars standing up.  Standing over the machine helped to keep an even pressure on the ruler (not always, but better than sitting down).  It was a better angle, too, to see the star come together and place each star-ray.

The last star was completed on Monday afternoon.  Binding commenced soon after that.  Oh, joy!  I nearly wept when I joined the binding edges together and finished machine stitching it to the front of the quilt.  I couldn't wait to trim the edges and start the long process of hand-stitching the binding down.  

The stars look really cool along the edge.  I had picked the binding fabric out the first day my sister and I picked fabric.  It's a lighter blue than the border and has little bits of glittery gold.  I had no idea at the time I'd quilt it in shiny gold thread.  So it goes really well with what I did.  Bonus!

I even have a name for the quilt.  Label is up next! (in-between stitching the binding)